Chapter 3 - The Ghost
My breath caught in my throat at the mention of the Russian cartel.
Everyone in the logistics industry had heard whispers of the Volkov syndicate.
They were a ruthless, bloodthirsty organization that left absolutely no survivors when they were crossed.
"Why would the Russians be in the hallway?" I asked Dominic, stepping back to create distance between us.
"Because your father didn't just unknowingly transport my weapons," Dominic explained, looking at Charles with pure disgust.
"He knowingly sold the exact routing coordinates to the Volkov cartel so they could hijack the shipment."
My father violently shook his head, tears of pure terror welling in his eyes.
"I had to do it!" my father cried out pitifully.
"The company was completely bankrupt, and the Russians offered me ten million dollars just for the shipping schedule."
I felt violently sick to my stomach.
While I had been working eighty-hour weeks in a windowless closet to save pennies, my father had been selling our family legacy to terrorists.
"The federal government intercepted the ship before the Russians could hijack it," Dominic continued.
"Now the Russians think Charles stole their ten million dollars and kept the weapons for himself."
Dominic pulled a heavy, matte-black pistol from his shoulder holster and set it on the table.
"You have exactly one minute to decide, Claire," Dominic warned.
"Work for me and fix this, or die with the family that despises you."
I looked at my sisters, who were crying hysterically in the corner.
I looked at my stepmother, who was violently trembling.
And then I looked at my father, the man who had erased me from his life and then forged my name on a death warrant.
"I need my laptop from the office to access the mainframe," I told Dominic, making my choice.
Dominic smiled, a genuine expression of dark approval.
"Smart girl," he murmured.
He gestured to the back of the restaurant, where a hidden door led to the kitchen.
"My men will escort your worthless family to a secure location until this is over," Dominic announced.
"You and I are going to the Whitmore Freight headquarters."
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Dominic's armored SUV.
We pulled up to the dark, silent office building of my family's company.
I used my keycard to unlock the side entrance, leading him directly to my small storage room office.
I booted up my outdated computer and aggressively bypassed my father's weak security firewalls.
"The federal impound system requires a highly specific override code to release the container," I explained, typing furiously.
"I can reroute the container to one of your private warehouses before the FBI officially catalogs the evidence."
Dominic watched me work, his eyes tracking my every movement with intense fascination.
"You are entirely too brilliant to be hiding in a closet," he noted softly.
Before I could respond, the computer screen suddenly flashed bright red.
A massive warning banner covered the entire monitor.
"What did you just do?" Dominic demanded, his hand dropping to his weapon.
"I didn't do anything," I whispered, completely horrified.
"Someone else is currently inside the mainframe, and they just manually transferred the ten million dollars from my father's account."
I traced the digital footprint of the transfer, my eyes widening in absolute shock.
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"The money didn't go back to the Russians," I told him, looking up slowly.
"It was just transferred into an offshore account registered in my deceased mother's name."
